Father takes plea, sentenced to prison for fatal abuse of 7-month-old

Keith Skinner, 33, was sentenced to just less than 22 years in prison.

Keith Skinner, 33. (Orange County Jail )

September 11, 2013|By Jeff Weiner, Orlando Sentinel

A man accused of murder in the death of his 7-month-old son pleaded no contest to a lesser charge and was sentenced to more than two decades in state prison on Wednesday.

Keith Skinner, 33, pleaded to aggravated manslaughter of a child in the September 2010 death of his son, Triumph, and was sentenced to just less than 22 years in prison, with credit for about three years already served in the Orange County Jail.

The boy's mother, 33-year-old Michelle Ford, told Circuit Judge Janet Thorpe that she had been "waiting for three years for this judgment to be handed down."

"I miss my son so much and he should not have been taken in the manner he has been taken," she said, asking Thorpe to sentence Skinner to the maximum penalty for the lesser charge: 30 years. "He doesn't realize the devastation that he has caused, and I don't think that he ever will."

Prosecutor Michelle Latham said she did not agree to the plea. Skinner, she said, is a serial abuser who regularly choked his son to sleep.

"I don't think he deserves, not even 30 years. He deserves more than that," Latham said.

According to an arrest affidavit, doctors who treated Triumph before his death noted the boy had suffered a perforated bowel and severely fractured skull. The infant also had "numerous fractured ribs which were in various stages of healing," the affidavit said.

During an interview with detectives, Ford initially said she was getting ready for work when the baby fell from a bed and hit his head.

However, she later revealed that Skinner had been watching the child, and called her at work to say she needed to come home immediately because he had "hurt" the baby.

When she returned home 15 minutes later, the baby was not breathing. She said Skinner told her he had "slammed" the infant's head against the couch, and begged her to lie to authorities so he wouldn't go back to jail.

Ford, who says she was also abused by Skinner, was charged with child neglect and later sentenced to a year in jail in a 2011 plea.

Thorpe agreed to the roughly 22 year sentence, explaining to Triumph's family members in the courtroom gallery that the plea would avoid the uncertainty of a trial.

"Juries are sometimes unpredictable and there is certainty that comes with a plea," Thorpe said, adding: "Nothing will bring Triumph back."

Before he was led away to begin his sentence, Skinner addressed the court.

"I understand the family's very upset about what happened... I can't take away the hate, I can't take away the pain and the hurt" they feel, he said. "... I have to deal with this for the rest of my life, that I lost my son."

Thorpe interjected: A young boy never had a chance to live his life, the judge told Skinner, "because of your acts."